Suitcase trauma. Kathryn Meisle admits she gets it each time she packs up and heads to a new theater, be it the Guthrie in Minneapolis, the Alliance in Atlanta or the McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, where she opens Friday night.

"When you get a role like Mrs. Packard in 'Mrs. Packard,'" says the willowy blond actress, "you go."

So Meisle packed her belongings from her New York apartment and prepared to be part of the world premiere of a play by McCarter artistic director Emily Mann. Meisle portrays Elizabeth Parsons Ware Packard (1816-1897), who's having trouble with her husband, Theophilus.

"Did she ever," says the bubbly Meisle with a laugh. "He was a minister, and she didn't agree with his Calvinist views of predestination."

The two didn't politely agree to disagree. "He locked her in a room so she couldn't see her six children," says Meisle, shaking her head at the thought of it. "Now in those days in Illinois, of course, it wasn't legal to keep your wife as a prisoner in her own home without a trial." Here Meisle puts a hand to each side of her head, as if that might help her understand. "But it was legal for a husband to put a wife in an insane asylum without a trial.

"That's all it took," she says sharply. "If a woman were a little too outspoken, high-strung, or even PMS-y, a husband could keep her there as long as he wanted."

When Mann was writing the play, she called Meisle (rhymes with "wisely") to do a reading.

"But I just couldn't," she says, guilt invading her voice. "I was at the Guthrie doing 'Three Sisters.' Emily, who knew me from the two shows I did here ("Wonderful Tennessee," 1995; "Humpty Dumpty," 2002), actually waited for me. When I could, I packed up and came to do the reading." Now she stars under Mann's direction.

This suitcase trauma comes from childhood. Meisle's father William was an actor, so she, her three younger siblings, and her mother were often on the road for his onstage appearances here and there. Meisle, who will only say she is in her 40s and spent most of her childhood in Monmouth, Maine, where her father co-founded the Shakespearean Theater of Maine.

"He played leading men and fools, and I was soon playing fairies and maids. I never learned to swim, and didn't care, as long as I could play Peaseblossom in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream,'" she recalls.

It wasn't the last Shakespeare she'd do, by any means. "Celia, Olivia, Viola, Helena, Titania and Desdemona," she says, ticking them off her fingers. "It's worth the suitcase trauma to be a working actress."

A classical role by a different writer nabbed her a Tony Award nomination: Elmire in Moliere's "Tartuffe" in 2003.

"At the time, I was doing 'Three Sisters' at the Guthrie, but I flew in for the Tony nominee luncheon at the Rainbow Room, even though I had to get back that same night for the show. So I was walking down the aisle of the plane, and a passenger waved at me and smiled. Ah, I thought, this is cool. I'm being recognized on this special day."

Not quite. "And then he said to me, 'You're Rebecca Luker, aren't you?'" she says, citing the blond Broadway performer. "And when I said, 'No,' he said, 'Oh, wait, now I recognize you. You're a United Airlines flight attendant, right?'"

She blinks quickly -- perhaps imagining how much suitcase trauma she'd have if she had that job.